1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing device that includes a transporting unit that transports a medium such as a paper sheet and a printing unit that performs printing on the transported medium.
2. Related Art
In the related art, as such a type of printing device, a serial-type printing device that performs printing on a medium by alternately performing a printing operation (an image forming operation) and a transporting operation has been widely known. The printing operation is an operation of performing printing corresponding to one line by using a printing head while a carriage moves in a scanning direction. The transporting operation is an operation of transporting the medium to the next printing position (for example, JP-A-2015-168237).
For example, JP-A-2015-168237 and JP-A-2010-271405 disclose a printing device which uses a technique of a consecutive overlap-feeding operation, which is an operation of causing a margin portion of a leading end portion of a following medium, which is fed later than a preceding medium, to overlap a margin portion of a trailing end portion of the preceding medium, which is fed earlier and transporting the preceding medium and the following medium together after printing on the preceding medium is finished until the following medium reaches a printing start position while maintaining a state where the preceding medium and the following medium overlap each other. According to this technique, since the preceding medium and the following medium are transported in a state where the trailing end portion of the preceding medium and the leading end portion of the following medium overlap each other, a standby time for the start of printing on the following medium can be relatively shortened and it is possible to improve printing throughput.
In the printing device disclosed in JP-A-2015-168237 and JP-A-2010-271405, after the consecutive overlap-feeding operation of transporting the preceding medium and the following medium to the printing start position of the following medium while maintaining a state where the preceding medium and the following medium partially overlap each other is performed, printing is performed on an overlap area between the preceding medium and the following medium. However, if printing is performed on the overlap area between the preceding medium and the following medium, the printing quality with respect to the following medium may be decreased since both sides of a boundary between an area in which the mediums overlap each other and an area in which the mediums do not overlap each other are different in level of a surface of the medium or in gap between a printing unit and the medium. Therefore, in the printing device of the related art disclosed in JP-A-2015-168237 and JP-A-2010-271405, there is a problem that performing the consecutive overlap-feeding operation may result in a decrease in printing quality. However, in the printing device in the related art, no measures have been taken against this problem. Note that, such a problem is not limited to a serial-type printing device and a line-type printing device has the substantially same problem.